VI.
I have looked in the eyes of poesy,
And sat in song's high place;
And the beautiful spirits of music
Have spoken me face to face;
Yet here in my soul there is sorrow
They never can name nor trace.
I have walked with the glamour gladness,
And dreamed with the shadow sleep;
And the presences, love and knowledge,
Have smiled in my heart's red keep;
Yet here in my soul there is sorrow
For the depth of their gaze too deep.
The love and the hope God grants me,
The beauty that lures me on,
And the dreams of folly and wisdom
That thoughts of the spirit don,
Are but masks of an ancient sorrow
Of a life long dead and gone.
Was it sin? or a crime forgotten?
Of a love that loved too well?
That sat on a throne of fire
A thousand years in hell?
That the soul with its nameless sorrow
Remembers but can not tell?
TWO.
With her soft face half turned to me,
Like an arrested moonbeam, she
Stood in the cirque of that deep tree.
I took her by the hands; she raised
Her face to mine; and, half amazed,
Remembered; and we stood and gazed.
How good to kiss her throat and hair,
And say no word!—Her throat was bare;
As some moon-fungus white and fair.